organization

Your VA Mentor: Schedule Your Work

Get More Done, Make More Money

At the IVAA Live Summit I spoke about organizing & prioritizing your work. One of the pieces of my presentation was about organizing tasks so that you get more done each day. When you are working as a support professional, it is easy to try to multitask and do many things at once, but there are all kinds of studies out there that show that multitasking is simply ineffective. It’s much more efficient to focus on one task at a time, and complete it, and then move on to the next thing. The way I handle multitasking in my daily routine is by batching my work – that is, collecting tasks that will done at one time and doing them… Read More »Get More Done, Make More Money

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Got Stress? Here’s How to Relax

With spring in the air, a common topic is spring cleaning. I started my own spring cleaning a couple of weeks ago when I downsized the piles and the storage in my office. I moved on last week to cleaning out our clothes closets. Spring seems to make you want to pull everything out and start with a new slate. But it doesn’t have to be spring to do this kind of stuff. If you find yourself under stress for any number of reasons, getting tidied up and organized can really help you alleviate that. Stress is one of those things that others point out to us. Not something that we often notice ourselves. Being a small business owner is… Read More »Got Stress? Here’s How to Relax

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3 Steps to Organizing Your VA Business

When you start to work virtually, you quickly realize that organization is a key skill that will become very important in your daily schedule. If you have come from a corporate background, you are generally working under one supervisor or ‘boss’, and priorities can sometimes be set by the individual you report to. Once you own your own business, this completely changes. You are now responsible to each and every client – and you are the one who has to be able to juggle the tasks and priorities of each of them. It can be difficult if you don’t have a system in place to keep things organized. Here are three keys to getting and staying organized in your business:… Read More »3 Steps to Organizing Your VA Business

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What Do You Need to Succeed in Your Virtual Assistant Business?

Almost every new VA I know becomes an information pack rat pretty quickly. As we begin to forage around looking for information about this industry that we don’t know much about, we start to collect. We collect websites, blogs, articles, free classes, and anything else we can get our hands on. So we can learn. It’s a great idea – but where do we stop – to apply what we have learned? One of the things I always tell my students and mentoring clients is to STOP collecting and USE what you have. The key to success is not to keep collecting at a break-neck speed. The key is to learn valuable information and then implement it into your business.… Read More »What Do You Need to Succeed in Your Virtual Assistant Business?

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Boundaries Help You Build a Better VA Business

“You teach people how to treat you.” Boundaries are essential to any successful business. There are boundaries that are necessary for many parts of your business, but in terms of client boundaries, you need to really think about many things, and you need to set your own policies or boundaries to manage the different personalities that will be working within your business. It’s critical in a virtual business when you are working with more than one client, to be able to articulate how you work with your clients. It’s true that you teach people how to treat you – by the way you set them up, by the way you interact with them, and by the way you react to… Read More »Boundaries Help You Build a Better VA Business

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Are You an E-Hoarder?

I was recently reading a blog post from Leslie Shreve, of Productive Day.com http://productiveday.com/ about E-Hoarding. As a virtual business owner, I’m always trying to find new ways to keep myself organized and to tame the various forms of clutter that I seem to collect. And while I am admittedly a collector of many things that I probably don’t need (my husband would laugh at that one!)  one of the things I actually do have good control over is my email. I have a system in place to keep my email clean and clear, and although I still probably have more ‘on file’ than many people, I am confident that my system works for me. What do I do? First,… Read More »Are You an E-Hoarder?

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Keep Track – And Make More Money

One of the most difficult parts of running a VA business, is making sure that you are paid properly for your time and effort. I’m not talking about your rates … I’m talking about tasks – the work you do every day. Whether you charge by the hour or by the project, you have to have some idea of the expectation of time it will take to complete your client’s work. If you don’t know that, you could be losing money. So do you track all of your time? If you don’t, you really should. Here are three models that you can charge your clients by … and why tracking your time for each of them can help make you… Read More »Keep Track – And Make More Money

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Wow, what’s that?

I don’t know about you, but I like to learn new things. When something comes along that I think might be valuable in my business or my clients’ businesses, I usually stop and have a look. It can be a new tool for organization or collaboration … something that maybe will help us automate something a little bit better … or maybe it’s just something cool. If I am really conscious of what I am doing, I can figure out when would be a good time to check something out in more detail. But sometimes … okay most of the time … I am not that present … and I become the victim of Shiny Object Syndrome. You know what… Read More »Wow, what’s that?

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